From Learned Helplessness to Learned Optimism

In 1971, Donald Hiroto prepared an experiment to induce Impotence Learned in humans following the parameters of the experiment with dogs, substituting electrical discharges for the emission of a loud noise (Seligman, 2004).

At the end of the experiment, Hiroto contacted Seligman to communicate the results:

• The subjects of the group who could not stop the noise in Phase I of the experiment, gave up in Phase II, without even trying anything.
• The other subjects, those who had managed to silence the noise in Phase I and those in the control group, easily learned what responses to emit to turn off the device that caused the noise in Phase II.
• One in three people did not develop helplessness despite not being able to silence the noise in Phase I.
• 10% of the subjects in the control group made no attempt to stop the penetrating noise in Phase II.

Of these results, strikingly similar to those of the experiment in dogs, new questions emerged:

_{"Doing Research"}

Garber and Seligman (1980) reported that they found the answers to these questions when they reformulated the theory by adding attributional analysis. This means that they began to take into account the explanation given by each person to the lack of relationship between the response issued and the result obtained.

This led to the so-called Explanatory Style, which is defined as:

A cognitive variable of personality that shows how human beings explain to themselves the reasons for events. In this way, the explanatory style allows us to understand the diversity of responses that people can give to uncontrollable events (Buchanan and Seligman, 1995).

HEY: Uncontrollable Events!

Here Seligman begins to notice that not only adversities can induce the learned helplessness, since any situation where there is no relationship between the behavior and the result, can generate it. In this way, failure and trauma are no longer under the microscope, achivements and success come to accompany them.

How is that possible?

This reformulated theory "not only refers to negative events but also when there are positive events where there is no contingency between the response and the result can produce helplessness, that is, we not only refer to failures but also to events where there is no contingency" (Garber and Seligman, 1980, p.12).

Therefore, if when you achieve a good result you think it has been a matter of luck, pay attention to what follows.

According to Seligman (2011), Explanatory Style is composed of two dimensions that allow you to determine if your style is pessimistic or optimistic:

1) Permanence:

As you can see, pessimistic style is composed of permanent patterns for negative events and transitory patterns for positive events. On the other hand, people with optimistic style attribute transitory causes to failures and permanent causes to achievements and successes.

2) Pervasiveness:

As you can see, pessimistic style is made up of universal patterns for adverse events and specific patterns for pleasant events. On the contrary, optimistic style people attribute specific causes to the failures and universal causes to the triumphs.

In this way, the explanation that each individual attributes to the lack of relationship between the response and the result, influences expectations about uncontrollable situations that arise a future.

It should be noted that Explanatory Style can be influenced by society, temperament, and life experiences that you accumulate, whether they are successes or failures. In addition, this theory suggests that pessimism is an important risk factor for depression.

Seligman (2011) reports that optimism and hope are beliefs that generate positive emotions about the future, and that can be developed. If you are a person who until now uses a pessimistic style, there are two things you can do:

A psychologist can help you without any doubt, to transform those pessimistic guidelines and beliefs that detract well from your life. As for the ABCDE model, it is a method developed from the ABC model proposed by Albert Ellis as part of cognitive psychotherapy, and basically consists in learning to detect and refute pessimistic thoughts, through a record.

When you realize that you are developing a pessimistic thinking, put the ABCDE model into practice.

• Adversity: describes the event, what happened? What is the situation?
• Belief: what have you thought about that event? What previous ideas did you have regarding the situation?
• Consequence: How did you feel thinking that way? What did you do as a result of those ideas?
• Disputation: What is the proof that supports this belief? What are the possible causes of this event? How many possibilities are there really that the worst happens? Is the belief destructive? Can the situation be modified? What can I do to get it?
• Energization: How do you feel after refuting the pessimistic idea? What did you do next?

Example:

Reality is that there are many situations in life that can be adverse. When these are presented, pay close attention to what you think about them and what you say to yourself, this internal dialogue is the key to identify if we are seeing things with the glasses of pessimism. If so, do not stay inert and helpless, seek professional help, surround yourself with people who give you a different perspective and remember that the important thing is not if you have control over the situation.

_{Images Sources and gifs:}

• _{"The Inner Storm" gif created by me from the adaptation made to the Image under Creative Commons CCO de Pixabay}
• _{"Phase I" and "Phase II", gifs created by me from the Image under Creative Commons CCO de Pixabay}
• _{"Doing Research", Image under Creative Commons CCO de Pixabay}
• _{"Questions", Image under Creative Commons CCO de Pixabay}
• _{"ABCDE Register", adaptation made by me from the image under Creative Commons CCO de Pixabay}
• _{Support tables were created by me in Power Point 2016, as well as the separators.}
• _{Subtitles were created by me from the Image under Creative Commons CCO de Pixabay}

_{Consulted References:}

• _{Buchanan, G. y Seligman, M. (Eds.) (1995) Explanatory style. Hillsdale, N.J.: Erlbaum}
• _{Garber, J. y Seligman, M. (Eds.) (1980) Human helplessness: Theory and applications. New York: Academic Press}
• _{Seligman, M. (1975). Helplessness: On depression, development, and death. San Francisco: W. H. Freeman}
• _{Seligman, M. (1991) Learned optimism. New York: Knopf}
• _{Seligman, M. (2002) Authentic Happiness. Great Britain: Nicholas Brealy Publishing}

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